Hi, All: Please pray a special prayer for me today. I should be rejoicing. Took dd back to the surgeon yesterday. She's doing great after her cleft palate repair! PTL!
We had 40 kids & teens last night at VBS! How awesome is that?!?
My problem: I'm dwelling on something stupid that happened after VBS last night. The one "trouble family" got mad at me for locking the front door of the church & they had to walk around our small building. It's something stupid. I emailed her this morning apologizing.
In my head, I know what's going on. The devil is trying to stop an awesome thing that is happening at our VBS. The people have their own issues they are dealing with.
During this month, God has revealed a lot to me. He has shown me that the Pastor & Family are "God's representation / physical presence" on earth. When people are mad at God, they can't really take it out on God. How can you get back at the Creator of the Universe? But, they can turn their anger on God to the Pastor & family - "slap God's face on earth" if you will. Does that make sense? Anyway, this has helped me a lot to pray "Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."
In spite of this knowledge & the awesome things that are going on, I can't get this silly situation out of my mind today. I know that I'm physically exhausted & that's not helping. Dh says "not to take it personally." I take EVERYTHING personally. And I dwell on it. And I dwell on it some more.
I keep trying to think of the positives, but it is hard. Please pray that I can walk in God's peace today and dwell on the awesome works of the Lord. Please pray for me as I am the "Bible Story Teacher" & that more kids will get saved tonight at VBS. (Isn't God good - I'm already starting to feel better.)
One more prayer request. I spoke w/ my mom a few minutes ago. My grandmother has Alzheimer's. She (grandma) just "went off the deep end" & started chasing my uncle w/ a knife & cursing like a sailor. They are right now in the process of trying to get her hospitalized & she'll probably be entering the nursing home after this. Please just pray for peace in the Sullivan family.
Thank you all so much. Any advice on how not to take things personally will also be greatly appreciated.
Yeah, it's hard not to take those personal comments personally, isn't it?
Sounds like you and I are in similar situations - small churches, legalistic people who don't want to get rid of their power and are making the pastoral staff miserable in the process...also sounds like God is really wanting to move in these small churches and the devil is trying his darndest to stop it.
We had a ladies' meeting last year, and a bunch of them were going on and on about the "stronghold" over our church, and they determined that there were demons left over from the ancient Indian burial mounds in our area...
After the meeting, our YP turned to me and said, "You do realize that was a load of you-know-what, don't you? If there's any 'spirit' or 'stronghold' over this area, it's a religious spirit, and it is manifesting in several members of our church."
Well, God has slowly been moving all of those families out, and the last two remain - and things are about to come to a head (Read my latest prayer request post for more details!)...I'm not sure what is going to happen there, but let's keep our tiny little churches in each other's prayers, okay?
